Creating a 3D version of my workplace! (beginner)

#1

Hello and greetings!

Although working for a few years with Autodesk Maya I’m still struggling getting used to work in 3D space and being good at it.
I tried teaching myself with guides and tutorials but way too often I’m stuck with problems to which I rarely find a solution on the internet. This way I hope to improve my skills in a more effective way!

My current project is to make a 3D version of my workplace - which will have a better composition as shown in the photo. This task will include: 3D modeling, UVmapping, texturing, setting up materials and rendering at the end.

Today I started with some of the models, which you can see here:

I still have troubles with 3D modeling in terms of good topology and would love to get some feedback on my works!

Thanks in advance for your help! :smiley:

#2

I don’t know why but today more and more errors are occurring which makes it very hard to get any progress at all. Today I started modeling the mouse and after having maya crashed while opening or saving any file now it won’t show me any additional settings windows anymore. Which means I’m not able to make any settings to actions like ‘mirror geometry’ or merge… I don’t know how to fix this.

Here is the model so far

#3

If you’re going for a realistic model of your work space I would suggest modeling everything in separate pieces. Just model it as it is, a keyboard and mouse are not one piece. Each key is a separate piece, same with the mouse the side buttons are not connected to the actual mouse. I’m sure that will help you with your typology.

#4

Thanks for the advice!

Hm… that makes a lot of sense and while doing the mouse I also had the thought of making everything seperate. Is this way of modeling a common thing to do?

#5

It depends on what you’re making. If you’re creating a model for games then you’re going to be limited by face counts and will rely a lot on textures, but if you’re trying to create something realistic then its more common to make everything separate because that’s how it’s really made.

#6

Makes sense! Hmm in general I want to produce assets for games but I guess I need to learn how to model in the first place? So I’m kinda torn between watching for polycount as well and doing the pieces seperately.

#7

Good way to think about it: is it going to be pre-rendered, or is it supposed to run in real-time? If you intend for something to go into a game later, then maybe keep it on the not-too-crazy side, but if it’s purely for beauty shots and getting crunched over-night and at render farms - go nuts. Even nowadays, poly counts for game characters and props is higher than it used to be by far, so characters can still be 10-20K depending upon what it is; and props are the same way, if it needs more than you can get some leniency.

#8

Next update: took me almost one day to fix my maya (re-installed it and deleted the pref folder in order to get all my windows back) and redoing the mouse with the advice I got here! The outcome looks definitely better imo but also has twice as much polygons as my first version. 1100 vs 500 polygons.


#9

The mouse is much better now. The reason of the huge polygons number is because you’re making a lot of subdivisions. Try to merge some polygons together.

#10

Thanks! I’ll do that before assigning materials and texturing which will be the last part of my task :slight_smile: (gonna do that tomorrow)

The models of today:



Also I just noticed some weird edges - gonna look into that also tomorrow.

#11

Sooo, the result so far. 1st real try at rendering and experimenting with materials and it looks really off. Tried to find a guide/tutorial for different plastic shader/materials but was not very successful with that. The same goes for a rubber material.

Also I couldn’t get a nice and cozy lighting for this setup… any advice and suggestions are very much welcomed!!

(And yes I know that there are no cables on the table, somehow I wasn’t able to make it with the extruding along a curve way… it came out way too thick )

#12

Added some more models and trying to match the view and the position of the stuff to the picture I took earlier. Still have troubles making soft shadows and glowing screens. If anyone has some advice on this I’d more than happy to hear them! :smiley:

#13

Hey, good to see you’re making progress

Are you using Gamma correction? it will help you soften the shadows and make a better render :beer:

#14

Hmmm I will have a look into the gamma correctin! Here is my final result for now: